hello hello whoever you are! my last post “inspiartion; its found when we least expect it” was a great hit! So many of you rote to me telling me how useful this infomation was for you all! So I went and did some investigating! As we all have come to learn over the years free things arnt always the best. So when it came to a free recycling tour I will admit I was sceptical about how well it would actually be.

Well all scepticism aside I took the time to go and see my local recycling centre the SMRC! and it was truly an amazing experience! it really inforce the ideas of recycling and the fact that what we put in our yellow bins here is actually recycled!

Above was a panarama that I took to show you all at home what my local government is doing for recycling

Did you guys find out where your rubbish goes one your finish? I urge you all to youll be amazed

As I am sure most of you know that two days ago Apple released their latest iPhone; the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, and ill be completely honest with you I wanted one, not because there is anything wrong with the iPhone5 that I have, it is just not as new as it once was. The slim sleeker finish, the bright vibrant colours of the new outer body, the fingerprint scanner wow I could go on and on. But before I went on anymore I paused, wow I have been overcome with the method behind what all these large companies want, I have been brainwashed into a consumer driven life! I am helping the cause that I am trying to stop.

Waste of all types leaves a tremendous mark on the environment, however since the turn of the industrial revolution ewaste has shown to be an ever increasing problem that currently sees no nearby end.

Ewaste is defined as waste that encompasses all old electrical appliances either in a state of disrepair or simply obsolete. Including everything from fridges and microwaves to mobile phones and computers.

So I set out. I spoke on social media. Calling for people’s input asking them how many phones they had gone through in their life. I was amazed! Before I tell to the amount id just like to clarify that these figures show a rough proportion of the population. Ranging from ages 10-75 through different religions/races/demographics. I asked 175 people via social media (Twitter/Facebook/Instagram) and a random people that were willing to answer when i walked up to on the streets and asked them a short survey in regards to their own personal usage when it came to mobile phones.

The average person from the survey that I personally conducted resulted in an average of 6 phones per person! 6 PHONES! thats pretty damn crazy to believe when you remember that the first phone only came out 40years ago.

So what happens to all these phones we use. The United States alone threw away 150 million old phones in 2010. We would all like to trick our selves into believing that when we get a new phone we recycle the old one. you know to those mobile muster centres? hands up who actully does that? yeah like I thought not all that many of us. Even phone Manufacturing giant Nokia has discovered through recent surveys that as a society only 9% of us actually recycle our mobiles. Containing hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants and arsenic our disregard for mobile phones being the fastest growing type of manufactured garbage in the world.

In what we life to think far far away, in impoverished places like Agbogbloshie, Ghana; Delhi, India; and Guiyu, China, children pile e-waste into giant mountains and burn it so they can extract the metals — copper wires, gold and silver threads — inside, which they sell to recycling merchants for only a few dollars.

Children around the age of 6, smash computer batteries with mallets to recover cadmium, toxic flecks of which cover their hands and feet as they work; Their mothers spend their days bent over baths of hot lead, “cooking” circuit boards so they can remove slivers of gold inside. This is only the start of the human ramifications that our obsessive spending is resulting in. Scientists agree that exposure poses serious health risks, especially to pregnant women and children. The World Health Organization reports that even a low level of exposure to lead, cadmium and mercury (all of which can be found in old phones) can cause irreversible neurological damage and threaten the development of a child.

remeber all those hazadous chemicals I mentioned back up there (ill help you out a bit they were lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants and arsenic) what do you think i will happen if we dont properly recycle them… imagine this, imagine the chemicals seeping into the ground; combining with the water. That water has the ability to grow your food, the wheat crop that prodcues your bread, or the grass to feed the cow for your meat. But wait a second dont we eat these things, so does that mean that we are eating these chemicals too? Yeah your right. SimplyThis is called toxic burden build up. This causes all sorts of massive nurological deformities, cancers and magnified effects in infants.

Just so you don’t panic and think that we have no hope and all else will fail wait! There are alternatives! Somephone business have models that could be beneficial to producers, users and the rest of us. For example, manufacturers could sell products complete with prearranged recycling service or subscriptions that made it possible, for example, for phone user to exchange old units for new ones rather than throwing them away. Under a product service system model, companies recycle old units and repurpose core components. Xerox uses a similar model for its photocopiers, without impact on sales or profits. There is always something that we can do to stop the nightmares of what will come!

I have hopefully attached a video (technology isn’t my strong point if you haven’t already guessed). When I stumbled across it I thought it was the most amazing message of hope that we as the consumer have! The correct disposal of ewaste is of vital to being able to achieve a sustainable future. It is us consumers we need to demand better end-of-life options for our high-tech trash; if manufacturers and government fall down on the job.

did you know that on average we use 168 plastic water bottles each per year. that’s a huge amount already but when you times that by the amount of people we have in the world that makes it ridiculously crazy!
personally I felt that I lacked knowledge when it came to the use of plastic bottles of water. are they really that bad for the environment as we make them out to be…

so I did a little research for you! I hope the stats are as frightening to you as they were to me

Approximately 1500 bottles end up in land fills and the ocean…….every second of the day! with the worst part being that it takes 700 years before plastic bottles start to decompose, with the potential to take up to 1000 years to fully decompose!

its silly though we complain about the cost of fuel reaching $1.50L here in Perth yet were more than happy to spend $3.50 for 500ml? can you explain the logic behind that? we spend on average $588.00 on water bottles each year

while we continue to use and abuse we don’t recycle the bottles – approximately 86% of plastic bottles aren’t recycled in USA, in NZ it’s 78%.

“Plastics are like diamonds………they really are forever” this is a quote on one of the websites that I looked at and after reading all the info I really began to understand why.

yet the other day i learnt about a first. a new technology placed in the centre of the Perth CBD that had the ability to dramatically change the way my local community abuse bottled water.

ProAcqua a trial technology used in forest chase. in which you get cheap tap, spring or sparkling water at a fraction of the cost… the only catch… YOU have to bring your own bottle! this could be the out mount franklin bottle you continue to reuse or that clunky metal cooler on you got from your dad all those years ago (thanks dad)

isn’t this fantastic!

i have a few questions to post for you guys though. is there anything like this where you live? any environmentally safe and hygienic water station?

and why is it that you think that we have such a poor recycling rate of water bottles? do you recycle yours?